The film clearly functions as wish-fulfillment for the kind of people who are nostalgic about all-white basketball, leaving a nasty aftertaste.

Director William Richert has turned Richard Condon's novel about the insanity of the American power structure into a wickedly funny black comedy spiced up by some deliciously off-the-wall performances.

It's too bad screenwriters Gough and Millar didn't have enough faith in their premise to play it straight; if they had, they might have produced a classic rather than a "Blazing Saddles" without the courage of its convictions.

Throughout, the notion that hip-hop is much more than rapping is a persistent theme, and anyone seeking a solid introduction -- or re-introduction -- to that ever vibrant culture shouldn't miss it.

Once Kim and Heidi finally meet, it becomes something much more complex: a gripping drama of culture clash and familial responsibility that also serves as a stinging metaphor for U.S. involvement in Third World nations like Vietnam.

While far from her best work, this accessible, emotionally involving domestic drama nevertheless serves as a welcome introduction.

The twists and turns continue until the very end of Choi's mesmerizing, high-energy romp, whose 139 minutes zip by like a round of speed poker.

Brynner is very good, his austere presence and unflinching intent making him seem indestructible.

A Star is Born captures wonderfully the hustle of Hollywood.

Arguably one of the best horror films of the 1980s.

A very frightening adaptation of the John Wyndham novel about a small English village that becomes the victim of unfriendly aliens.

An uneven but unusually thoughtful melodrama, Carnal Knowledge avoids most of the the trendy excesses that make some other films of its era so difficult to watch today.

An impressive first feature from Melvin Van Peebles has a black American soldier, Baird, stationed in France and visiting Paris on a three-day pass.

In stripping her potentially lurid material of salacious appeal, Martel also makes it murky and oddly arid, a mind-numbing exercise rather than an experience.

The three leads--particularly Pryor, in an essentially non-comedic role--are remarkable.

Jones handles his fellow actors well, drawing a hard, anguished performance from Pepper and allowing January Jones (no relation) to bring a touching vulnerability to Mike's bored, vapid, baby-doll wife.

A deeply satisfying film, THE BEST INTENTIONS, honored with the prestigious Palm d'Or at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, uses its considerable length to examine the early relationship of Bergman's parents with uncompromising thoroughness.

Ocelot forgoes the razzle-dazzle of 3D, computer-generated animation and turns instead to West African painting, sculpture and fabric for layout, character design and the film's gorgeous color palette.

However you feel about her character and what she may or may not have done, Tamblyn's portrayal of Stephanie Daley is softly devastating.

This gripping documentary sheds light on the frightening totality of Hitler's vision for a Germanic Europe, and the extent to which he and his Nazi thugs were no better than common thieves.

None of this is any more fun as it sounds -- the cancer ward scenes are truly disturbing -- but to be fair, writer/director Lone Scherfeg (the first woman to make a Dogme 95 film) manages some black-humored laughs.

Punjabi weddings are notorious for their lavishness, and Nair's intoxicating soap opera revels in the sights and sounds of this clamorous family ritual.

By turns profane, vulgar, unpredictable, scabrous and perpetually somewhere between buzzed and three sheets to the wind, Bukowski opened a window onto a fringe world of blue-collar drudgery and alcoholic self-obliteration with his blistering, bleakly comic dispatches from the gutter.

The story the film has to tell is an outrage, but it never devolves into a sputtering tirade.

Well-acted, deftly written and directed, and expertly shot by Young, this darkly comic tale of a hapless small-time gangster is an engaging cinematic artifact that remains as fresh today as the day it was made.

Between Nahon's pressure-cooker performance and the director's assaultive style (he's fond of brooding long takes interrupted by shotgun blasts of lurching, skip-frame edits and bold intertitles), the film would be an unbearable expression of rage, except that Noé's winking, nearly absurd sense of humor offers a disconcerting reminder of the unreality of it all.

Colorful Cajun noir, spicy, romantic, efficient.

Cook and Moore brilliantly shift from character to character with just a change of voice (not unlike Peter Sellers), and the movie never flags.